Articles

Domestic Wastewater Treatment and Its Reuse for Irrigating Home Gardens

As an environmental solution to face water scarcity and threat coming from untreated domestic wastewater, the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ) has put huge efforts in developing locally made wastewater treatment plants to be utilized at domestic level to help promote sustainable development and combat desertification in the occupied Palestinian territory. Developed wastewater treatment plants adopted activated sludge technology as biological process, followed by mechanical filtration as advanced treatment. This provided an environmental friendly solution to the problem of the generated wastewater at household level (ARIJ, 2010). The adoption of such approach resulted in: (1) Protecting the environment from pollution caused by the improper wastewater disposals (use of cesspits), mitigating and reducing of the environmental and health problems and risks ; (2) Providing a better management of the wastewater resources by reusing the treated wastewater for irrigation purposes economizing in domestic drinking water volumes used for irrigation, (3) Contributingin an increase of the agricultural areas as result of the new water resource,(4) Contributing in the family economy and sustainability, this was achieved by economizing the monthly expenses that benefited families used to have as concept of hiring wastewater vacuuming services and which was provided by vacuum tankers,(5) The new planted fruit trees and which are currently irrigated with treated wastewater are expected to contribute in the family food security, (6) Protecting the surface and ground water resources .